Newbie Questions
 

My name is Jim. I am 43 years old. Looking to purchase a Nitro car. Would like it to to be fully upgradeable engine, suspension, bodies, wheels tires etc. Easy to find parts. Something durable. Any help would be apprecited. Thank you.

Sounds to me like a Tmaxx? You can buy the 3.3 engine, big bore shocks, much aftermarket support, and its Traxxas, so its relatively durable (especially with RPM parts).

http://www.rcplanet.com/Traxxas_T_Ma...p/tra49104.htm

savage x. the tmaxx needs some slightly difficult to find parts to run a big block, whereas the savage comes with one stock. plenty of aftermarket parts and bodies and they are all but actually bulletproof.

I chose the T-Maxx 2.5, because he wanted something upgradable, and Traxxas' Trade In program makes it easy.

The tmaxx and the savage are the 2 hottest nitro monster trucks out there right now. I own both and I like the Savage a little bit better. It seems like its more durable so the need for aftermarket parts is less. Maybe a arms and hub carriers. Some things are easier to work on on the tmaxx on the savage but also vice versa. The tmaxx will be easier to get parts for when it breaks because most hobby shops stock traxxas parts. I have also found that the drivetrain on the savgage is more durable than the tmaxx but that is an easy upgrade.

i'm pretty sure he meant upgradeable as in aftermarket and hopup parts, not send the thing in just to get a truck he could buy in the first place.

Savage
pile of after market parts if you can break the stocks (seriously it can take a pile of abuse)

If you want a car, I'd go for Associated, HPI or Losi. All have plenty of support. If a truck is what you want, I'd stick with those vendors also. Traxxas, meh. They always seem to break down easily if you're not careful. I've had 4 of their vehicles, and the old 4tec was the most reliable, but even that had faults. Just my 2 cents worth.
What are you looking for, and where would you run it?

Well currently only Nitro HPI I would recommend is the Savage as the trophy line is about as durable as the crappiest redcat on the market, but for 3-4X the price. The MT2 is discontinued everywhere, but in the US(they basically shipped the US the leftovers), and the vehicle has quite a few durability issues (I own one) which there are no fixes for plus its price. The Bullet is ok, but you could get a 1/8th scale buggy from other manufacturers for that price which will smoke it in every which way.

But that is how I see HPI now.

Agreed on the Savage. Mine has been through hell and back, and the only thing I've broken was a shock rod end. Thing's a TANK. BTW, curious what the weak points are on the nitro MT2. My MT was decent back when I had it, only problem I had was keeping junk out of the drive belts.

Front A-arms, knuckles, and they loved to throw dogbones.
A-arms were kinda thin and I broke 3 at the same exact spot so that kinda says weakness. Funny thing was the rears I never broke. then there was no aftermarket a-arms to fix that weakness...

The screws would back out of the knuckles so fast it wasn't funny due to the knuckles being made from a soft marerial. I lost 3 screws in 10 mins till my aluminum knuckles came in back when I ran mine. This was an extremely common issue as people would always complain about it back when this site was booming, and the old MT2 thread was extremely active.

The dogbones another common issue people complained about. I lost so many front dogbones I started painting them bright neon colors so I could potentially find them(that was a tip a few people here would tell owners to do). I used to take 3 full packs of dogbones with me per run which you shouldn't need to do... IMO the issue was the dogbone was a tad too short, and it would pop out of the cup easily if you turned (why only the fronts would get lost). The HPI fix was to try and center it using rubber washers which didn't work too well most the time.

The drivetrain now was pretty damn solid on the nitros as it was shaft drive.

Dang! Maybe I just got lucky. I didn't break anything on mine or have any screws backing out, but maybe the electric version didn't have enough vibration to cause such problems.

I also had a Nitro MT1, and oddly that one the arms didn't break(actually 2, but the one the parts were extremely brittle as it looked like it was stored in a shed for a few years). The only reason I scrapped it was the ball end snapped off in the arm flush so I had no way to get it out, I couldn't find any arms at the time, and I wasn't gonna bother downgrading it to MT2 arms as the conversion cost quite a bit for arms that I found snapped easily plus gave issues with the dogbones. I think the issues came in HPI reused the MT1 dogbone length combined with the arms with the new C-hub design, and knuckles pushed the cup out a tiny bit.